Implications

NHS England - Global Digital Exemplars

As well as her work with NHS England, Ann has recently been
involved in Tech Fund and NIHR funded programmes, loosely based on a Learning
Health System philosophy, that have been aimed at achieving improved digital
maturity.

NHS England have committed to funding a number of Trusts to
become Global Digital Exemplars (GDEs). A GDE will be an internationally
recognised NHS care provider delivering exceptional care, efficiently, through
the world-class use of digital technology and information flows, both within
and beyond their organisation boundary.
It will also provide a reference site for other care providers. 12 Acute
providers have so far been chosen:

North

Salford
Royal Hospitals NHS Trust

Wirral
University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

City
Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust

Royal
Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust

Midlands and East

West
Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

University
Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Luton
& Dunstable University Hospital NHS Trust

London

Royal
Free London NHS Foundation Trust

South

Oxford
University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Taunton
and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

University
Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

University
Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

Information Technology is increasingly recognised as a key
enabler of change and transformation. In secondary care in particular, we are
not yet realising the benefits of investing in digital technology to deliver
the triple aim as outlined in the Five Year Forward View.

So far, there has been a focus, within providers, on getting
digital infrastructure in place, in areas such as ePrescribing. There has not
yet been enough work on using the data collected to optimise and transform
care. It is not clear why this has been, but possible reasons include, day to
day pressures, funding challenges and the need for more imaginative approaches.
Some providers are beginning to make real progress by combining improvement
research (e.g. from IHI) with technical infrastructure and by learning from
other countries. Other providers will require some more encouragement. As well
as providing funding to the GDEs, NHS England is taking a two pronged approach
to sharing and spreading innovation:

1.Establishing a Learning Network: to encourage
GDEs to share learning but also to collaborate on developing common solutions,
so that they do not each have to reinvent wheels unnecessarily. Initially,
learning will be shared between GDEs, but the expectation is to then share work
with other Trusts so that they can leapfrog the original exemplars.

2.Independent Evaluation: of the GDEs will be a
central part of their development. This was recommended by the Wachter Review
and will measure progress again qualitative and quantitative measures,
including digital maturity. It will provide important learning for future work.

Evaluation of digital interventions is critical, but it can
be challenging to evaluate underlying standards, technical infrastructure and
outcome measures. This requires ongoing work.

There are great opportunities to use data to help redesign
healthcare. NHS England are aiming to offer a vision of how this can be
achieved and incentives to make it a reality. The hope is that it will become
core business.

The Model Hospital Project is a good example of how
quantitative data can be used to benchmark hospitals, providing an incentive
and a tool for improvement. This sort of data will also be very important to
the Vanguards.

There is significant opportunity for partnership between the
NHS and academic teams:

-In evaluation

-In analytics/research

-In developing spin-off projects

NHS England has been looking at what it can learn from other
industries and has identified examples that might be applicable. The next stage
will be to investigate these in detail.

NHS England have used research from The Health Foundation,
particularly to inform the development of their Learning Networks They also see
significant potential to learn how to disseminate learning, from work that The
Health Foundation is doing around Q Community. We need more effective and
creative methods of dissemination than publishing on our website or in academic
papers.